Afoot in Mexico City

Architect Michel Rojkind, whose office is just short walk away, in the top floor of a skyscraper overlooking Parque España, is a linchpin in this vibrant network. A former drummer in the Mexican band La Gente Popular, Rojkind retains an iconoclastic, devil-may-care attitude. Wiry and lithe, clad in a tailored black suit, he is a study in angles: a salt and pepper shock of hair counterbalanced by a satyr-like beard. Rojkind’s award-winning architectural practice is equally multifaceted, covering a broad array of municipal and residential projects—even dipping into industrial design—and serves as a guiding light for a new wave of young designers. “We are a much more collaborative generation by nature,” he explains. “We brag about who we are working with because, of course, it’s cool—you are working with a cool guy doing furniture and a cool guy doing rapid prototyping, design, and branding, and you’re doing cool architecture—everything adds up,” he says. “Ideas are ideas. When you understand that the more you are able to share, the more you learn. That is a natural way of growing.”

Across the Parque Espana, at the fashionable Condesa DF Hotel, you will often find two such “cool guys” and occasional Rojkind collaborators Hector Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena, eating breakfast or having a casual meeting in the hotel’s breezy open-air courtyard. Esrawe and Cadena, who focus in industrial and graphic design, respectively, have worked together on a number of branding and interior projects over the past ten years, including the high-concept (literal) watering hole, Casa Del Agua, which collects, filters, and bottles its own artisanal water right in the heart of Roma, as well as a number of restaurant and retail concepts, including Tori Tori, a popular sushi restaurant in the well-heeled borough of Polanco, northwest of Condesa and Roma. Like Rojkind, Esrawe and Cadena see their creative process as being part and parcel to their unique experience and inclinations, not simply as Mexican designers. “We always tell our clients that we don’t work for them; we don’t work for us; we work for the project. We start from scratch every time,” says Esrawe. “What is nice about it is that, for sure Nacho is a really successful designer, Michel a really successful architect, and I work in industrial design quite well, but our best projects are when we team up together. There is something in that formula.” For Cadena, it all comes down to communication and receptivity to new ideas. “We really put [our egos] aside. It’s about putting yourself at ground zero, like you don’t know anything. It’s not about adding industrial or interior design, or even branding to [each other’s] practice, it’s really about merging the creative process, the thought process.”

By contrast, a neighboring arts organization, All City Canvas (ACC) looks to take art out of hallowed gallery spaces and into the community, commissioning the world’s best street and graffiti artists to do site-specific interventions in Mexico City and abroad. As recipients of Herman Miller Cares Art, Design & Culture award this past year, ACC created a site-specific piece on the exterior wall of Impact Hub’s new coworking space in the heart of Roma. As cofounder Ricardo Celaya explains, “We think that when you put art out there for the people, that disruption creates an impact. But what we appreciate the most, I think, is the creative process itself. You can see the actual artist doing his thing at the moment, something you don’t get to see very often. In the end, an artwork stays in the city and lots of experiences and memories go with it.” In the end, it’s all about the experience of making and sharing visual culture. Esrawe echoes this sentiment: “We believe we are Mexican designers, not because we work on a stereotypical expectation of what Mexicans should do—we’re not attached to that—we believe that it’s Mexican because it’s made by Mexicans. I’m made from my culture, but I have imprints from all over the world.” And in that sense, Herman Miller has found itself in very good company, indeed.